Monthly Archives: September 2016

One of the joys of working in nature are the occasional special little moments of connection.
Kate Barnwell, fruit tree enthusiast from South Carolina, was helping us catch up on some grafting. While scoping out what we wanted to do across the whole orchard, we had admired how active and plentiful our bees are this glorious Spring.
Then about 30 minutes later we were working on this cherry plum, 200 metres from the hives, when a cloud of bees passed right over our heads, coming from the direction of the hives.
We tried to follow them on foot, but unlike a swarm they were travelling purposefully, too fast for us to follow them far, and quickly went out of sight beyond the olive grove. The next day none of the hives showed reduced numbers, as they would have if they had given up a swarm, so it seems we were just in the right place at the right time to witness a queen and some of her admirers on their way to a drone congregation area. It felt very magical to have just been admiring the bees 30 minutes before, then to be 200 metres away and have them fly right over our heads, as if they wanted to show us what they were up to.

Kate Holmes came over to lead a sauerkraut making session. Here, after bruising the sliced cabbage on the table by working a heavy rolling pin over it, she is punching the cabbage into the pot with layers of salt. With Anna Turner.

It is a rare opportunity to lay out a new treed parkland within a township area. What criteria to use to choose the trees and shrubs? Who will be motivated to maintain this privately owned parkland? How will the trees and grass be managed?

David Arnold, Jim Peart and Struan Clarke on the day of planting

This 8 hectare site within Avenel village will have a 10 lot residential subdivision, Belmont Hamlet, with the greater portion of the space to become parkland. For me, David Arnold, it was a pleasure to work with Jim and Winifred Peart, the developers, on this parkland project. I have been working with Jim on occasional tree development projects since 1998.

Jim and Struan will care for these private land parkland plantings while they are young, including weeding around the trees and mechanical mowing, but such altruistic expense cannot be expected to last forever. In the longer term we had to consider how to allow the future park manager(s) to obtain a yield from this land, and how to ensure that these future managers value and appreciate the trees.

So we anticipate future grass management by grazing animals, probably sheep and/or goats. The common parkland form, of an open wooded grassland, can be ideal for grazing. We selected attractive shady long lived species, all giving a passive yield of shade for animals and people, and most of which also give a direct grazing and possible human food yield. So… a number of hardy oak (Quercus) species for acorns, Carobs, also for autumn fodder supplement, Kurrajong (Brachychiton populneus) which can give foliage fodder, plus some Boree (Acacia pendula), and a few Peppercorn trees (Schinus molle). A mix of regional natives and introduced species. Ecosynthesis.